College Hotline

1–Just as a logic exercise, I came up with two and only two possible explanations for Nasir Robinson’s unfathomable foul at the end of Pitt’s monumental 71-70 loss to Butler tonight.

It was so bad, I think Robinson actually committed TWO fouls on Butler’s Matt Howard in the last 1.4 seconds, 88 feet from the basket.

Both of my imagined explanations are crazy–but that foul was crazier.

-Instead of realizing the game was tied and about to head into OT, perhaps Robinson thought Pitt was behind by one and needed him to do anything to get the ball back after Gilbert Brown missed the FT and Howard rebounded it.

That would explain the wild whacking Robinson was doing–I mean, why else would he possibly be so frantic so far from the basket?

Or…

-Maybe Robinson panicked and forgot what basket he was under–and fouled Howard instead of letting him get a “lay-up” to win the game.

After the game, according to Pete Thamel of the New York Times, Robinson used neither explanation–which is probably good, because neither would help at this point. Robinson just blamed himself for making a dumb play.

I guess Robinson just was trying to knock the ball loose and put it back in for the win… but that was crazy. Just insane. We’ll remember this one forever, like Chris Webber and the timeout.

2–The refs had to call both of the stupid fouls committed in the last 1.4 seconds, one by Butler’s Shelvin Mack and the ultimate foul by Robinson. It’s not even a borderline judgement for me.

They did right. The players screwed up. You have to blow the whistle when that happens.

* It’s official: Andrew Luck has announced that he’s staying at Stanford and bypassingthe upcoming NFL Draft. I don’t think this affects Jim Harbaugh’s decision, not with $40M plus staring him in the face, but if he had any little thought of staying, Luck’s return would have to help that.

And if Harbaugh goes… which is logical, given the money involved, it will be an interesting contrast: Luck staying in school and passing on the immediate cash, and Harbaugh leaving for money.

You’d have to believe that the pending NFL lock-out and potential new rookie wage scale had something to do with Luck’s decision, too. Though I’m sure this is mostly about loving life at Stanford. Not a terrible sales pitch for a university.

Here are my potentially awful/possibly wise picks for all 34 bowl games–exactly as I sent them in for the Royce Feour Las Vegas Bowls Contest (and based on the point spreads he used and the game-value he assigned).

Wilmer always picks the bowls, too.

In order to avoid a bland recitation of the picks on the blog landscape, Wilmer and I annually make sure we note which games we differ on, and see who wins out.

So here’s Wilmer’s full slate of picks (he is not a Vegas Contest participant), with explanations and everything. No chance of that from me. If you want more than just the picks, go to the Hotline.

We differ on 15 games, which is similar to last year, when we differed on 14 games.

Last year was a good one for me: I clobbered him 10-4 in those games (and yes, also won the Vegas contest by going 17-7 vs. the spread in the more valuable games).

Of course, the Hotline whupped me the year before–just a disastrous picking year for me–and I do not have records for our competition in the years previous to that.

To my game-by-game picks, and bracketing them as Royce did, by the point-value…

* I’ll try this out, maybe as a keeper recurring item, maybe not: Bits and pieces from the Twitter overnight or things to point to in the coming hours that could form a decent item, but not yet, ’cause it’s early…

Call it Morning 1, 2, 3, and here’s how it’ll go in the debut edition:

1. I’m headed out to Raiders OTA in a bit, obviously to take a look at JaMarcus Russell’s development and to get a feel for how Tom Cable is putting together this team with the slight, occasional, light-as-a-feather help from Al Davis.

I wrote an Alex Smith/JaMarcus Russell column for this morning and I’m still struck by the similarities in their current situations, though they were drafted No. 1 overall two years apart.

Syracuse and Wilmer could’ve finished this contest off last night, but I’m still on the ropes, barely hanging on, loading up for one dazed and wild haymaker.

I’ve got to hit with some lower seeds. Wilmer is basically dormy–one loss by me (that he doesn’t also pick) or one pick by the Hotline (that I don’t have) and this head-to-head match-play event is done.

Rules: You are rewarded the same amount of points as the seeding as the team you correctly predict to win, with points now quadrupling in the fourth round of play.